S. sclerotiorum

Gene Search

Sclerotinia sclerotiorum Database

Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Lib.) de Bary is among the world's most successful and omnivorous fungal plant pathogens, with a host range of greater than 400 plant species. Despite decades of dedicated effort, resistant germplasm is still lacking in economically important crops. As an exemplar of soilborne pathogens and necrotrophic pathogenesis, S. sclerotiorum is a model for development of asexual, persistant propagules, somatic compatibility, and sexual sporulation. It is also central to a group of Ascomycetes with poorly known evolutionary relationships.

The Sclerotinia sclerotiorum sequencing project was funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Cooperative State Research Education and Extension Service, through the USDA/NSF Microbial Genome Sequencing Program.

Project Information

The Sclerotinia sclerotiorum sequencing project was funded by the National Research Initiative, which is within the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Cooperative State Research Education and Extension Service, and reviewed through the USDA/NSF Microbial Genome Sequencing Project. Our strategy involves Whole Genome Shotgun (WGS) sequencing, in which sequence from the entire genome is generated using paired end reads from plasmids and Fosmids and assembled using Arachne (Batzoglou et al. 2002, Jaffe et al. 2003). The rapid availability of this sequence in an annotated form will immediately promote discovery of genes and potential anti-fungal targets, permit reconstruction of pathways, provide sequence-anchored clone paths for use in genetic and functional studies, and enable comparative genomic approaches to analysis.

Our specific aims are as follows:

Produce a high quality draft assembly of the S. sclerotiorum genome with an average depth of ~7-fold in Q20 bases and ~40-fold physical coverage in the assembly

Sequence 12,000 cDNAs from two libraries to increase the accuracy of the S. sclerotiorum annotation

What is Sclerotinia sclerotiorum?

Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (Lib.)
de Bary is among the world's most successful and omnivorous fungal plant
pathogens, with a host range of greater than 400 plant species. Despite decades
of dedicated effort, resistant germplasm is still lacking in economically
important crops. As an exemplar of soilborne pathogens and necrotrophic pathogenesis,
S. sclerotiorum is a model for
development of asexual, persistant propagules, somatic compatibility, and
sexual sporulation. It is also central to a group of Ascomycetes with poorly
known evolutionary relationships. We foresee control measures on several
scales, e.g., blocking pathogen-plant signaling, defeating key pathogen
developmental stages; or maintaining a broad base of genetic resistance against
a range pathogen genotypes. These strategies could also be effective against
closely related species. In the longer term, we see comparative genomics as
tool for getting at key processes controlling genetic stability in populations,
basic principals of pathogenesis in comparisons among other fungi, and better
resolution of the Ascomycete branches (> 30, 000 species) of the Tree of
Life.

Which strain is sequenced?

The strain chosen for sequencing is designated as the '1980' strain (ATCC18683).